1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an arrangement structure for a duct, in which, for example, an air intake opening is provided on a lateral portion of a seatback of a vehicle seat.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, a battery for supplying electric power to a driving source is mounted on an electric vehicle, a hybrid vehicle, or a fuel-cell vehicle. Such a battery generates heat during charging or discharging. Therefore, a vehicle having such a battery is designed to take in air in a vehicle room by an air supply fan and supply the air to the battery for cooling (for example, refer to JP 2004-001683 A (FIGS. 1, 2, and 5)).
In the cooling structure for a vehicle battery described in JP 2004-001683 A, an air intake opening of an air intake duct is provided with a tonneau cover to cool a battery mounted under the floor of a luggage space, in which air in the luggage space is flowed to the battery from the air intake opening through an air supply fan for cooling.
However, since the luggage space is disposed at the rear end portion of a vehicle, the air in the room of the luggage space is warmed by sunlight. Therefore, cooled air is hard to flow in. Thus, the temperature of the luggage space is higher than that of the air inside the passenger room.
As a solution of this problem, a cooling air intake structure, which has been devised to take in cooled air in the passenger room, is known and described in JP 2009-154599 A (FIGS. 1 to 5).
FIG. 5 shows an arrangement of the air intake opening of the duct of a conventional cooling air intake structure for a battery, and is a perspective view showing the arrangement of a main part without a fin filter or the like for preventing foreign matters from entering. FIG. 6 is an enlarged horizontal cross-sectional view showing an arrangement of a striker and a lock mechanism in the conventional cooling air intake structure for a battery. FIG. 7 shows the arrangement of the striker in the conventional cooling air intake structure for a battery, and is an enlarged cross-sectional view showing an arrangement without the fin filter or the like for preventing foreign matters from entering.
As shown in FIG. 5, in the cooling air intake structure for a battery described in JP 2004-001683 A, an air intake opening 110 of a duct 100 for taking in air for cooling a battery (not shown) is disposed between an upper lateral portion 210 of a rear seat 200 and a vehicle sidewall 300 (refer to FIGS. 6 and 7) to take in air from the side of the passenger room R into which air cooled by a cooling unit is discharged. In the upper lateral portion 210 of the rear seat 200, there is arranged a lock mechanism 500 for locking a striker 400 substantially in a U-shape which horizontally protrudes along a vehicle lateral direction from the vehicle sidewall 300 (refer to FIGS. 6 and 7).
However, in the cooling air intake structure described in JP 2004-001683 A, the striker 400 for fixing the upper lateral portion 210 of the rear seat 200 to the vehicle sidewall 300 is arranged at the position where the air intake opening 110 of the duct 100 is provided. Also, the striker 400 penetrates the upper portion of the air intake opening 110. Consequently, even if the air intake opening 110 of the duct 100 is formed long in the up and down direction, the obstruction caused by the striker 400 narrows the cross-section in the vicinity of the striker 400 in the duct 100, which reduces the air flow. This prohibits taking-in of a large amount of air. That is, with the conventional cooling air intake structure, the space in the vicinity of the upper lateral portion 210 of the rear seat 200 is restricted by the striker 400 and cannot be used. Consequently, there has been a problem that the air intake opening 110 may take in the air in the passenger room only from a lower portion 120 which is lower than the position of the striker 400.
Further, as shown in FIGS. 6 and 7, the striker 400 is arranged horizontally in a vehicle lateral direction with respect to the vehicle sidewall 300 extending in the vertical direction. Therefore, there has been a problem that the striker 400 has a structure which is easy to receive a load in the peeling-off direction (the forward and backward directions shown by the arrows A and B in FIG. 6) when the vehicle is rear-ended by a following vehicle, or the vehicle itself suddenly accelerates or stops.